The Scramble For Iraq's Sweet Oil

With proven oil reserves of around 112 billion barrels and up to another 150 billion barrels of probable reserves, Iraq is the greatest untapped prize for international oil companies. To put that in context, if Iraq does turn out to have around 300 billion barrels of oil, it will rival the world's biggest producer Saudi Arabia - which has around 160 billion barrels of proven reserves.

So it is little wonder that giant international oil companies are lining up to get back into Iraq after the industry was nationalised in the 1970s and the oil majors were kicked out. On June 30 major companies - including Exxon, Shell, BP and Total - will gather at Iraq's oil ministry in Baghdad for a two-day meeting to take part in the first bidding round for oil service contracts.

However, what the oil companies will be entitled to if they secure a contract has become one of the most controversial elements of the bidding process. The companies want a long-term share of the oil they produce under a Production Sharing Agreement, which allows them to book reserves in advance and tell the market exactly how much oil they expect to produce.

This is exactly the type of contract that Iraqis in the oil industry are opposed to. They argue oil companies should be awarded Technical Service Agreements, meaning they will be paid solely to develop Iraq's oil fields. Fayad al-Nema, general manager of Iraq's South Oil Company, has written to Hussein al-Shahristani, the Iraqi oil minister, outlining his company's objections.

Iraqi objections

"We in the South Oil Company, that is all of its leadership, reject the first bidding round because it is against the interests of Iraq's oil industry." Al-Nema, and others, argue that it would serve the national interest better if foreign companies were brought in on a short-term basis only, until Iraqi firms are capable of managing and developing the oil fields themselves.

Oil workers' unions in Iraq have also spoken out against the contracts. Hassan Joumah, president of the Federation of Iraqi Oil Workers Union, says: "Unfortunately, there are many problems with the first round of the allocation of Iraq's oil contracts, which have given huge advantages to the foreign companies to invest in Iraq's oil.

"Giving such returns to foreign companies will put Iraq's economy in the hands of foreign companies." The Iraqi oil workers gained some concessions including establishing joint operating companies.

Under this arrangement, international oil firms will not receive a share of Iraq's oil but they will be working in the country for the next 20 years with a 75 per cent stake in the operation. Over the last two weeks, al-Shahristani has been forced to defend the terms of the contracts before parliament.

He argues that without outside help Iraq can not boost its oil production levels, warning lawmakers: "We will not achieve our desired goals and our country will fall behind." However, the contracts on offer are not the only controversy surrounding the exploitation of Iraqi oil.

KRG dispute

Iraq's newest oil field is not in the desert of western Iraq or the barren landscape of the south near Basra. It is in the semi-autonomous region of northern Iraq which is controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

The Norwegian company DNO has already excavated the Tawke oil field in this region. Its owners proudly show off their new field and their enthusiasm is contagious; they have discovered the type of oil Iraq is renowned for - what oil experts here call "sweet oil". It is easy to produce and costs less than $2 to get out of the ground. Within a couple of years they hope to be exporting 200,000 barrels per day from here.

But Iraq's federal government says contracts signed by the KRG are illegal and refuses to recognise them. The main bone of contention is who controls Iraq's oil and gas reserves. The Iraqi constitution should provide the answer, but conflicting articles in the document have exacerbated the power struggle between Baghdad and the KRG over the management of these resources.

Both sides have teams of lawyers and consultants arguing that the constitution gives them the right to sign contracts and manage the resources. Falah Kadhim Al-Khawaja, an Iraqi oil expert in Amman, says the central government in Baghdad is right.

"Based on the constitution, there is a clause that says oil and gas is the property of the Iraqi people and the central government is responsible for the budget. So the Iraqi budget is based on oil and gas revenues. How can the central government plan without having control of oil and gas resources?"

Nevertheless, the KRG has pushed ahead and signed dozens of oil contracts with foreign companies. Interestingly, the world's biggest oil companies, Exxon, Shell, BP and Chevron, have avoided signing contracts with the KRG. They do not want to risk the wrath of the federal government, opting instead to wait for the most lucrative contracts for the super-giant fields in the rest of the country.

Until recently, the Tawke oil field was caught in the middle of the dispute. Since early 2009, the oil field has been ready to begin exporting around 60,000 barrels a day. Instead, the KRG told DNO to delay exporting until it the conflict with Baghdad is resolved.

So DNO filled up its main exporting pipeline with water and waited.

Pipeline politics

At the end of May, the KRG gave DNO the go-ahead to begin pumping oil out of the country through the northern Iraq-Turkey pipeline.

However, the tension between Baghdad and the KRG is far from resolved. Ashti Hawrami, the KRG's oil minister, accuses the federal government of being "afraid of good news". "They are afraid [that] oil flowing from Kurdistan shows Baghdad in an even worse light. They failed and this will highlight their failure even more," she says. This is the KRG's first foray into the oil-producing business and, as Hawrami likes to remind people, the regional authorities "do not want a single penny out of it".

The oil revenues will all go to the federal government and the KRG will receive its 17 per cent share of the national budget to manage its region. Al-Shahristani, however, insists: "Any contracts for field development that is not approved by the federal government of Iraq has no standing with the Iraqi government and the oil companies have no right to work on Iraqi territory."

The pipeline politics are likely to continue unless a deal is reached between the two parties.

Source: http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/06/20096288505111580.html

Tags: Iraq, Kurdistan, KRG, Ashti Hawrami, Baghdad, DNO, Norway, Al-Shahristani, Iraqi Sweet Crude, Federation of Iraqi Oil Workers Union, Tawke Oil field, Exxon, Shell, BP, Total, Iraq's South Oil Company, Global Economic News,

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Intel and Nokia Announce Long-Term Relationship

In a deal intended to strengthen Intel's push into the mobile computing arena, the Santa Clara chip maker and Finnish cell phone giant Nokia on Tuesday announced what they called a long-term relationship to develop new mobile devices.

Under the arrangement, the companies said they will work together on chip design and open-source software. Intel recently has entered that field with its Linux-based operating system called Moblin, designed to function on portable devices, and Nokia has a Linux-based operating system, dubbed Maemo. In addition, Intel will license some modem technology from Nokia.

However, executives with the two companies repeatedly declined during a conference call and a later interview to discuss what type of devices they might make and to what extent Nokia might use Intel's chips.

"We will talk about products when we are ready to talk about products, but that is not for today's discussion," said Anand Chandrasekher, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's ultra mobility group.

"There is a lot of room for innovation here, to really define what mobile can do," said Kai Öistämö, Nokia's executive vice president for devices. "It's a future full of different possibilities." After the announcement, Intel's stock rose 13 cents to $15.81 at the close of trading.

No financial terms were disclosed for the deal, and the two executives were evasive about when their collaborative discussions began. They said only that their companies have been doing joint research for several years. In May, Intel, Nokia and a number of other companies formed an association to promote rapid new wireless technology for shuttling data among computers, high-definition television sets and other devices in homes.

Although details about the agreement announced Tuesday remain vague, the deal suggests intriguing possibilities for Intel. Although the company's x86 microprocessors serve as the brains in most personal computers and servers, it sees the rapidly expanding market for mobile computing devices as one of its biggest growth opportunities. And the cell phone business, where Nokia is the world's biggest manufacturer, is an area Intel is especially keen to enter.

Intel, whose chips are not used in Nokia products, has so far been shut out of the cell phone market. That's largely because Intel's microprocessors use too much power to enable the phones to maintain sufficient battery life. Instead, cell phones use low-power chips based on technology developed by ARM, a small company in the United Kingdom.

Öistämö said Nokia plans to continue working with ARM-based chip makers. But Intel hopes to break into the cell phone market with future versions of a chip it introduced in March last year, called Atom, which uses less power than other Intel microprocessors and is relatively inexpensive. Moblin, one of the open-source software systems that Intel and Nokia will collaborate on, works well with the Atom chip, the companies noted in their joint press release.

What sort of devices the two companies might develop remains unclear. Nokia has been rumored this year to be considering making netbooks, which are smaller than laptops. Intel, whose microprocessors already are in laptops and netbooks, is promoting its chips for even tinier gadgets, including phones.

In their press release, the companies said they hoped to "define a new mobile platform beyond today's smart-phones, notebooks and netbooks." The deal drew mixed reviews from analysts.

"This is a compelling partnership," Jack Gold, founder of technology research firm J. Gold Associates, based in Massachusetts, said in a note to his clients. "We do not envision Nokia abandoning its core dependence on the ARM architecture in the short term, but longer term (two to three years) we expect Nokia to offer devices based on Atom." Gold added that "this collaboration could limit the impact Google's Android operating system will have on the netbook market."

But J.P. Morgan analyst Christopher Danely was less enthusiastic about the partnership, writing to his clients that "we don't expect much to come out of it."

While the deal "should help Intel in its quest to generate wireless design wins for its Atom processor," Danely concluded, "we continue to believe the deficiencies of Atom in power consumption, cost and software relative to other applications processors render it an uncompetitive product."

Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_12672076?source=email

Tags: Intel, Nokia, Strategic Partnership, Jack Gold, Atom, ARM chips, Google Android, Christopher Danley, JP Morgan, Silicon Valley, Moblin, Santa Clara, Netbooks, Maemo, Global IT News,

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Obama Triumphs With Energy Bill

WASHINGTON – In a triumph for President Barack Obama, the Democratic-controlled House narrowly passed sweeping legislation Friday that calls for the nation's first limits on pollution linked to global warming and aims to usher in a new era of cleaner, yet more costly energy.

The vote was 219-212, capping months of negotiations and days of intense bargaining among Democrats. Republicans were overwhelmingly against the measure, arguing it would destroy jobs in the midst of a recession while burdening consumers with a new tax in the form of higher energy costs.

At the White House, Obama said the bill would create jobs, and added that with its vote, the House had put America on a path toward leading the way toward "creating a 21st century global economy." The House's action fulfilled Speaker Nancy Pelosi's vow to clear major energy legislation before July 4. It also sent the measure to a highly uncertain fate in the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid said he was "hopeful that the Senate will be able to debate and pass bipartisan and comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation this fall."

Obama lobbied recalcitrant Democrats by phone from the White Houseas the House debate unfolded across several hours, and Al Gore posted a statement on his Web site saying the measure represents "an essential first step towards solving the climate crisis." The former vice president won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work drawing attention to the destructive potential of global warming.

On the House floor, Democrats hailed the legislation as historic, while Republicans said it would damage the economy without solving the nation's energy woes. It is "the most important energy and environmental legislation in the history of our country," said Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts. "It sets a new course for our country, one that steers us away from foreign oil and towards a path of clean American energy."

But Rep. John Boehner, the House Republican leader, used an extraordinary one-hour speech shortly before the final vote to warn of unintended consequences in what he said was a "defining bill." He called it a "bureaucratic nightmare" that would cost jobs, depress real estate prices and put the government into parts of the economy where it now has no role.

The legislation would require the U.S. to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 and by about 80 percent by mid-century. That was slightly more aggressive than Obama originally wanted, 14 percent by 2020 and the same 80 percent by mid-century.

U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are rising at about 1 percent a year and are predicted to continue increasing without mandatory limits. Under the bill, the government would limit heat-trapping pollution from factories, refineries and power plants and issue allowances for polluters. Most of the allowances would be given away, but about 15 percent would be auctioned by bid and the proceeds used to defray higher energy costs for lower-income individuals and families.

"Some would like to do more. Some would like to do less," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said in advance of the final vote. "But we have reached a compromise ... and it is a compromise that can pass this House, pass that Senate, be signed by the president and become law and make progress."

That seemed unlikely, judging from Reid's cautiously worded statement. "The bill is not perfect," it said, but rather "a good product" for the Senate to begin working on. And there was plenty to work on in a House-passed measure that pointed toward higher electricity bills for the middle class, particularly in the Midwest and South, as well as steps to ease the way for construction of newnuclear reactors, the first to be built since the accident at Three Mile Island in 1979.

The bill's controversy was on display in the House, where only eight Republicans joined 211 Democrats in favor, while 44 Democrats joined 168 Republicans in opposition. And within an hour of the vote, both party campaign committees had begun attacking lawmakers for their votes.

One of the biggest compromises involved the near total elimination of an administration plan to sell pollution permits and raise more than $600 billion over a decade — money to finance continuation of a middle class taxcut. About 85 percent of the permits are to be given away rather than sold, a concession to energy companies and their allies in the House — and even that is uncertain to survive in the Senate.

The final bill also contained concessions to satisfy farm-state lawmakers, ethanol producers, hydroelectric advocates, the nuclear industry and others, some of them so late that they were not made public until 3 a.m. on Friday.

Supporters and opponents agreed the bill's result would be higher energy costs but disagreed vigorously on the impact on consumers. Democrats pointed to two reports — one from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and the other from the Environmental Protection Agency — that suggested average increases would be limited after tax credits and rebates were taken into account. The CBO estimated the bill would cost an average household $175 a year, the EPA $80 to $110 a year.

Republicans questioned the validity of the CBO study and noted that even that analysis showed actual energy production costs increasing $770 per household. Industry groups have cited other studies showing much higher costs to the economy and to individuals.

The White House and congressional Democrats argued the bill would create millions of "green jobs" as the nation shifts to greater reliance on renewable energy sources such as wind and solar and development of more fuel-efficient vehicles — and away from use of fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal.

It will "make our nation the world leader on clean energy jobs and technology,"declared Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who negotiated deals with dozens of lawmakers in recent weeks to broaden the bill's support.

Pelosi, D-Calif., took an intense personal interest in the measure, sitting through hours of meetings with members of the rank and file and nurturing fragile compromises. At its heart, the bill was a trade-off, less than the White House initially sought though it was more than Republicans said was acceptable. Some of the dealmaking had a distinct political feel. Rep. Alan Grayson, a first-term Democrat, won a pledge of support that $50 million from the proceeds of pollution permit sales in the bill would go to a proposed new hurricane research facility in his district in Orlando, Fla.

In the run-up to the vote, Democrats left little to chance. Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., confirmed by the Senate on Thursday to an administration post, put off her resignation from Congress until after the final vote on the climate change bill. And Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., who has been undergoing treatment at an undisclosed facility, returned to the Capitol to support the legislation. He has said he struggles with depression, alcoholism and addiction, but has not specified the cause for his most recent absence.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090627/ap_on_go_co/us_climate_bill

Tags: Obama passes energy bill in congress, Carbon emissions, Carbon reduction, energy costs, Global Development News, Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman, Ellen Tauscher, Alan Grayson, CBO study, EPA, Patrick Kennedy,

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Microsoft and Publicis Strike Deal

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) and Publicis Groupe, owner of ad networks including Saatchi & Saatchi, have struck a deal to tap into data from TV set-top boxes to deliver highly targeted TV ads. The deal, which will also create new digital advertising formats, was struck with Publicis Groupe’s combined media operation Vivaki and announced at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

“Everything in this announcement is about digital media,” said Curt Hecht, president of Vivaki Nerve Centre. “It is about more accountability in TV advertising, which is long overdue, using data and technology. On the content side, it will allow companies to better build brands and we are also looking to the future of advertising with new formats.” Vivaki will develop an advertising exchange using Microsoft’s Admira technology, which taps into user data in set-top boxes.

Publicis Groupe clients will be able to buy audience-specific ads based on information gleaned from the viewing habits of US households who watch TV using set-top boxes.

The second part of the deal involves developing new digital ad formats and will build on Publicis Groupe’s existing initiative, called the Pool, an alliance involving Microsoft, CBS (NYSE: CBS), Hulu, Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), AOL (NYSE: TWX) and Discovery (NSDQ: DISAB) that has created a new pre-roll advertising format expected to launch in January.

After today’s deal, Microsoft will help develop and launch 10 advertising formats in different areas, including user-generated content, mobile phones and social marketing. The two companies will collaborate on creating digital content for Publicis Groupe clients.

Microsoft will support Publicis-owned PBJS, a production studio, to develop digital content and programming ideas that Publicis Groupe advertisers will be able to sponsor, ad fund or otherwise support.

“Marketing is not an exact science, it is the last great area that needs to be made more efficient,” said Scott Howe, corporate vice president of advertiser and publisher solutions at Microsoft. “The famous quote that advertisers don’t know which 50% of their advertising is being wasted [can still] be true. This collaboration could change the industry.” The deal is non-exclusive.

Microsoft has come out with a flurry of media buyer announcements this week to capitalize on the focused attention of the ad industry at Cannes. A few days ago, Interpublic Group’s Mediabrands unit said it will be working with Microsoft on software that automate certain functions in the media buying and planning cycle.

The Vivaki arrangement is essentially an small expansion of the “open source” platform that Publicis Groupe unveiled a year ago this month when it announced a partnership with Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo and Google (NSDQ: GOOG). The agency’s alliance with Microsoft on targeted TV ads also suggests that media buyers are waiting for the slow movement of companies like the MSO-backed Canoe Ventures to produce an actionable addressable TV platform.

Source: Microsoft, Publicis, Interpublic Group’s Mediabrands, Publicis Groupe, AOL, Yahoo, Google, Vivaki arrangement, Global IT and Business News, PBJS, Discovery Channel, Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, Saatchi & Saatchi, Vivaki Nerve Centre,

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Twitter: Fastest Growing Brand

Twitter grew 1,448 percent from this time last year, but its growth is slowing as the year goes on, according to Monday data from Nielsen.

The micro-blogging site logged 18.2 million unique visitors in May 2009, up from 1.2 million in May 2008, and up 7 percent from April 2009. Those stats make Twitter the fastest growing brand year-over-year, but that growth is starting to slow, Nielsen said. Time spent on Twitter also increased 175 percent from last year, up from 6 minutes and 19 seconds to 17 minutes and 21 seconds. That was down 1 percent from April 2009, however.

Elsewhere in the social networking sphere, Facebook remained the number one global social networking site in May for the seventh month in a row with 144.3 million unique visitors. It was also number one in the U.S. for the fifth month in a row with 75.4 million visitors - a 190 percent increase from May 2008.

MySpace was still number one when it came to total video streams, with 116.1 million video streams. Unique video views jumped 22.9 percent month-over-month, from 9.9 million in April 2009 to 12.2 million in May.

Source: http://tech.yahoo.com/news/zd/20090622/tc_zd/241620

Tags: Twitter, Twitter growth, unique visitors, myspace, Facebook, Nielsen, unique video views, total video streams, twitter fastest growing brand, Global IT News, global social networking,

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UN Convenes Economic Summit

The United Nations General Assembly opened a three-day conference Wednesday on the global financial crisis. More than 140 countries have sent representatives to the meeting, which hopes to decide on emergency and long-term responses to help ease the impact of the crisis, especially on the world's poorest countries.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the world is still struggling to overcome the worst global financial and economic crisis since the United Nations was founded more than 60 years ago. "It has touched every part of the world," he said. Mr. Ban says he believes it is the responsibility of the developed world to help poorer countries weather the current economic storm.

In April, at the G-20 summit in London, he asked leaders for more than a trillion dollars in financial support for those countries. As the U.N. summit got underway, Mr. Ban said he would press the leaders of the eight leading industrialized nations to honor those commitments when they meet next month in Italy.

"That is why I have just sent a letter to G-8 leaders urging concrete commitments and specific action to renew our resolve," he said. He said his letter stressed the need for resources to help developing countries adapt to climate change and called on leaders to honor pledges of aid to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals of reducing poverty and disease by 2015.

There are 192 member states in the United Nations. One hundred forty two sent representatives to the conference. Among them is the Vice President of Honduras, Aristides Mejia Carranza, who explained the economic impact of the financial crisis on his country. "For this year, the decline in remittances, a decline in exports and in tourism have meant a reduction of economic growth to a mere two percent," he said.

He said while that is better than the global average, it would be insignificant for the Honduran economy and could threaten gains made in reducing poverty during the past few years.

Analysts say the effect of the global downturn on Honduras' economy has been almost identical to that in many other developing nations, especially those in Africa - a point highlighted by Zimbabwe's Vice President, Joyce Mujuru.

"At lower levels of development, we are more vulnerable to fluctuations in the world markets," said Mujuru. "Coming on the heels of the food and energy crises, the global financial crisis seriously threatens sustainable economic growth and sustainable development on the [African] continent, and could reverse progress so far attained toward the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals."

During the next three days, the U.N. General Assembly will hear from individual delegations, as well as hold interactive roundtable discussions on mitigating the effects of the world economic crisis on development. Developing urged the United Nations to convene a high-level meeting during a financing and development conference in Doha, Qatar in December, saying they wanted a forum for their voices to be heard. But the planning process leading up to this week's meeting was fraught with difficulties, including attracting high-level participation and negotiating the conference's outcome document.

Source: http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-06-24-voa5.cfm

Tags, UN, Ban Ki Moon, Zimbabwe, Joyce Mujuru, Millennium Development Goals, UN General Assembly, Doha, Global Development News, Honduras, Africa, Aristides Mejia Carranza, G-20, G-8,

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Italy Intercepts Billions in Fake Treasuries From Japanese

Ever since two middle-aged men with Japanese passports were caught in Italy this month trying to smuggle a purported $134.5 billion in United States government bearer bonds into Switzerland, the Internet has been abuzz with theories.

Was the Japanese government, or some other creditor nation, secretly trying to dump Treasury bonds to drive down the value of the dollar? Had the Italian mafia stolen the equivalent of 1 percent of the American gross domestic product, using the paper, which supposedly was instantly convertible into cash, to run a giant scam?

Adding spice was the whole Bond — James Bond — aspect of the tale. A crowded customs checkpoint near the Alps; two men traveling on a local train, professing that they had nothing to declare; and a false-bottom suitcase containing United States government bonds made out in stratospheric denominations.

In all, the Italian financial police and customs guards confiscated 249 paper bonds, each supposedly worth $500 million, and 10 bonds with a face value of $1 billion each.

Too bad the bonds were fake.

“The whole thing is a total fraud,” Stephen Meyerhardt, a spokesman for the Treasury Department, said Thursday. “They don’t look anything like real securities, which in any case were never issued in any of those denominations.”

The highest denomination ever issued by the Treasury Department was $10,000, he said. The Italian financial police claimed some of the paper was “Kennedy bonds” from the 1930s, but no such bonds ever existed. And the total of Treasury bearer bonds still outstanding is a mere $105 million; the Treasury has been issuing bonds in electronic form since 1986.

But none of this has stopped the rumor mill from grinding away. After reports of the seizure began to trickle out of Italy, the blogosphere sprang into action, the ponderings fueled by suspicions that the mainstream media was willfully ignoring the tale.

The story took on greater life after Italian authorities — who have refused to talk about the scandal — declined to declare the bonds fakes until they were examined by Washington. After all, although the Guardia di Finanza suspected the bonds were false, if they were not, the Italian treasury stood to profit from a law that permits the government to pocket up to 40 percent of the total value of cash or securities smuggled into the country over the legal export limit, which is 10,000 euros.

Repeated telephone calls to the prosecutors’ office in Como, Italy, that is handling the investigation were not returned.

Darrin Blackford, a spokesman for the United States Secret Service, which was contacted by the Italian financial police and the prosecutor’s office to determine the “legitimacy of the seized financial instruments,” said that his agency had verified the bonds were “fictitious instruments and were never issued by the United States government.”

Col. Rodolfo Mecarelli, the provincial commander of the financial police in Como, said the investigations were focused on “understanding who these men were and where they were from.”

Or where they might have been going. “Switzerland may not have been their final destination,” he said in a recent interview. “They could have taken a plane anywhere.”

Also unknown are the whereabouts of the two men, who were released after being stopped in early June. Italian law does not call for the criminal arrest of persons found to be taking funds without permission to another country. It might have been another matter if the police had determined immediately that the bonds were false.

“The men were questioned, but not arrested,” said Naoki Oyakawa, an official at the Japanese consulate in Milan, which contacted judicial officials in Como after reading about the seizure in the Italian papers.

He said the two men had valid Japanese passports, but he would not elaborate further on their identities. “We don’t know where they are now,” he said. “We have had no contact with the two men. They have not asked us for our help.”

What the bonds were for remains unclear. “It’s not the sort of thing that you can just go into a bank and convert,” said Colonel Mecarelli. “But they may have been useful to guarantee business deals among people who don’t use cash.”

Agencies that deal with financial crimes, including Europol, declined to comment while the Italian investigation was still under way. The Treasury Department says it is stumped, too. “I can’t speak to the motives of the person or persons who tried to do this,” Mr. Meyerhardt said. “I would guess that they were trying to find someone foolish enough to buy the securities for real money.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/business/global/26fake.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Tags: Italy, Japan, USA, Fake US Treasuries, Colonel Mecarelli, Kennedy bonds, Switzerland, Como, US Treasury Department, Milan, US Secret Service, James Bond, Global Economic News,

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Russia Considers Bail-Out For Banks

Russia is looking at a bail-out of its banks that would go further than the emergency action taken by the US, amid growing fears that bad loans could paralyse the country’s economy.

Igor Shuvalov, deputy prime minister, will consider taking stakes in troubled banks when a group of experts on the financial crisis meets on Friday to discuss ways to recapitalise Russia’s banking system, according to a draft proposal seen by the Financial Times.

The proposal, one of several under consideration, would see the government issue OFZ treasury bills, a type of bond, to boost the balance sheets of the biggest banks. In return, the state would receive preferred shares.

Unlike the US bank bail-out, the Russian scheme would see the government take board seats and have veto rights. Analysts said such a plan would allow banks to declare the true level of their bad loans and, once their balance sheets were cleaned up, enable them to start lending again in 2010.

About $100bn in domestic loans fall due by the end of the year and the central bank has said bank profits would be wiped out if non-performing loans reached 10-12 per cent of the total.

With high interest rates and a dearth of new credit, bankers say they fear non-performing loans could hit as much as 20 per cent of overall credit portfolios by the end of the year.

Ratings agencies Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s have warned that Russia could need to spend $40bn recapitalising the banking system.

The recapitalisation funds would be limited to the top 55 banks in Russia’s 1,100-strong banking system, analysts said. The draft bill says only banks with a minimum of Rbs50bn ($1.6bn) in assets would be eligible.

Source: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/67bf237c-61a7-11de-9e03-00144feabdc0.html

Tags: Russia, Medvedev, OFZ Treasury Bills, Standard & Poor’s, Recapitalisation, Russian Banks, Igor Shuvalov, US Bank bail-out, Russian bank bail-out, Moody’s, Global Economic News,

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Healthcare Makes A Miraculous Recovery

Obama gets drug companies to cut senior drug bills by $80 billion. Suddenly, his plan is no longer dead

WASHINGTON -- Last week didn't bring much good news for the Obama administration's drive to overhaul healthcare. Congressional budget wonks announced the draft legislation the Senate was working on would cost more than anyone expected; the industry players the White House had worked hard to bring into the reform process started grumbling about the whole thing. By the weekend, conventional wisdom inside the Beltway had more or less already declared reform dead.

Which made Monday's announcement by President Obama that the lobbying arm for the nation's drug manufacturers had agreed to cut the costs of drugs for seniors by $80 billion over the next decade something of a confusing spectacle. If the chances for getting anything done on healthcare had dwindled away, what was the president doing bringing back his campaign slogans -- and, more confusingly still, smiling confidently?

"To those who, here in Washington, who've grown accustomed to 'sky is falling' prognoses and the certainties that we cannot get this done, I have to repeat -- revive an old saying we had from the campaign: Yes, we can," Obama said. "We are going to get this done."

So the deepest significance of the deal between the government and PhRMA, the drug lobby, may well have been what it meant politically. Yes, the announcement means Medicare patients will no longer have to deal with an odd "doughnut hole" in their drug coverage; before Monday, the government pays for seniors' prescriptions if their annual cost is under $2,700 or more than $6,100, but not if the price is in between.

But more important, the news gave the administration a public relations victory -- the president just saved the government, and seniors, $80 billion -- to kick off a week where Obama plans to play offense, not defense, on healthcare. On Tuesday, the president will hold a midday news conference, where he'll have a chance to pitch his plans, and on Wednesday, the White House will host ABC News all day, culminating in a live, prime-time town hall on health reform.

"There was this feeding frenzy last week," one administration official admitted. But White House aides -- who like to insist that they're not paying attention to day-by-day news cycle battles, even as they manage events carefully to fit them -- aren't close to panicking yet. "There will be lots of developments every day about little provisions, and ultimately [very little of it] matters until you get a final bill."

Obama certainly didn't seem ruffled on Monday. He repeated the administration's main theme about healthcare -- you may like the coverage you have, but if the current system isn't changed, you won't be able to afford it for much longer. "Our goal -- our imperative -- is to reduce the punishing inflation in healthcare costs while improving patient care," Obama said. "And to do that we're going to have to work together to root out waste and inefficiencies that may pad the bottom line of the insurance industry, but add nothing to the health of our nation."

Among healthcare policy experts, that's become common knowledge, but the administration isn't finding it as easy to sell to the rest of the country -- or even to Congress. Obama has taken to quoting liberally from a New Yorker article about healthcare cost disparities in two neighboring Texas cities; administration officials have realized the story lays out their case pretty well. What's tricky about pitching the reform plan is that surveys show most voters actually like the care they have. In the last two weeks, Democratic and Republican pollsters have both reported fairly broad satisfaction with existing healthcare options. Obama's challenge is to convince people the system will soon gobble up an unsustainable share of the budget -- both on the federal level and where their own paychecks are concerned -- unless it's changed.

That task won't be easy, but advocates say it's certainly still possible. "People need to put aside the instant gratification bug and appreciate that it's going to take a while to get through the details," said Jackie Schechner, a spokeswoman for Healthcare for America Now, a union-backed group pushing for reform. Even the price tag doesn't have to scare voters off. "They say it's expensive to fix it, and then somebody gets their next insurance bill." Republicans, though, plan to focus their rhetoric on how much the reforms would cost -- more than $1.6 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office, though that number is likely to change once the legislation is finished.

Meanwhile, the aspect of the reform that Congress is most upset about doesn't seem to be particularly controversial with actual voters: including a government-funded insurance option to compete with private plans. A CBS News/New York Times poll found 72 percent of respondents liked the idea. "Free puppies and ice cream isn't as popular as that," the administration official joked.

Even Republicans had to acknowledge that the public seems less than terrified. "Indeed, 'government bureaucrats' are scarcely less appealing than 'insurance bureaucrats," a GOP polling memo by Whit Ayres and Ed Gillespie reported on Monday. By the end of this week, the pundits may start declaring healthcare reform is as good as done. Last week's panic was probably premature. This week's celebration will be, too.

Source: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/06/23/healthcare/index.html?source=rss&aim=/news/feature

Tags: Obama, Congressional Budget office, Phrma, Pharma lobby groups, Big Pharma, Healthcare for America now, GOP, New Yorker, Global Economic News, Pollsters, Senate, Beltway,

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US Draws Line With China On Climate Technology

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Access to green technology is becoming a growing stumbling block in global efforts to fight climate change, with US lawmakers bristling at what they see as China's attempt to "steal" US know-how.

China and India have led calls for developed nations to share technology to help them battle global warming as the clock ticks to a December meeting in Copenhagen meant to seal a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. The US House of Representatives this month unanimously voted to make it US policy to prevent the Copenhagen treaty from "weakening" US intellectual property rights on a wind, solar and other eco-friendly technologies.

Congressman Rick Larsen, a member of President Barack Obama's Democratic Party who authored the measure, said the United States was caught between concern both over the climate and its soaring trade deficit with China. "The US can be part of China's solution for the problems that they admittedly have with energy efficiency and emissions. And I think legitimately we want to be part of that solution -- we're the two largest emitters of C02 in the world," Larsen said.

"But we need to couple being part of that solution with making it part of the solution on the trade deficit as well," he said ahead of the measure's approval. Representative Mark Kirk, a Republican who joined Larsen on a recent trip to China, said that climate change was the most contentious issue during talks with Chinese leaders.

Kirk said the Chinese essentially were seeking "the stealing of all intellectual property" related to energy efficiency and climate change. Kirk warned that China's position could change the political dynamics in Washington, where promoters of a bill to force emission cuts say the United States stands to create millions of jobs in a new green economy. "Right now a number of green industries like the climate change bill coming out. But if an international treaty sanctions the theft of their intellectual property, then there will be hardly any green jobs built in the United States," Kirk said.

The United States is the only major industrialized nation to reject the Kyoto Protocol, with former president George W. Bush saying it was unfair by making no demands of fast-growing developing nations such as China and India. Despite a recession, President Barack Obama has vowed to work to halt the planet's warming, which UN scientists warn will threaten severe weather and the extinction of plant and animal species later this century if unchecked.

More than 180 countries promised at a December 2007 meeting in Bali, Indonesia to take part in the next global treaty with a "common but differentiated responsibility" for developed and developing economies. But 12 days of talks this month in Bonn came up with no visible progress, with top Chinese negotiator Li Gao accusing rich nations of reneging on sharing technology and watering down commitments to cut emissions.

"There is an attempt to obliterate the principle of 'common but differentiated responsibility' and to split up the developing countries," Li told China's state Xinhua news agency.

Shyam Saran, India's envoy on climate change, also criticized rich nations, which he said bore the historic responsibility for climate change. India has proposed setting up global "innovation centers" to work on green technology.

A report last month by experts for the UN climate body called for a "balanced" approach, stressing the importance of intellectual property rights but saying all nations needed to accept the terms.

Technology transfer "is certainly a big and important question that might be a roadblock" in global negotiations, said Daniel Kessler of Greenpeace.

The environmental group has called for public and private funds on climate change to be pooled into an independent global body, funded to the tune of at least 140 billion dollars a year. But such funding may prove hard to come by. The European Union, champion of the Kyoto Protocol, has come under fire from environmentalists for declining to put a figure on climate aid, saying it is waiting to see other nations' proposals.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090623/bs_afp/uschinaclimatewarmingtechnology_20090623022226

Tags: China, USA, Obama, Kyoto Protocol, EU, Greenpeace, Xinhua, Li Gao, Daniel Kessler, Shyam Saran, Global Development News, US House of Representatives, Copenhagen, Bali, Mark Kirk, Rick Larsen, Intellectual Property, Global Best Practice,

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World Bank Cuts 2009 Global Growth Forecast

The World Bank has cut its 2009 global growth forecast, saying the world economy will shrink by 2.9 percent and warning that a drop in investment in developing countries will increase poverty.

"The global recession has deepened," the Washington-based multilateral lender said in a report.

Global trade is expected to plunge by 9.7 percent this year, while total gross domestic product for high-income countries contracts by 4.2 percent, the bank said. It said economic growth in developing countries should slow to 1.2 percent — but excluding relatively strong China and India, developing economies will contract by 1.6 percent.

The bank's latest forecast is a sharp reduction from its March prediction of a 1.7 percent global contraction, which it said then would be the worst on record. Economic damage to developing countries "has been much deeper and broader than previous crises," warned the report, issued Sunday in Washington.

"Unemployment is on the rise, and poverty is set to increase in developing economies," it said. The global economy should start to grow again in late 2009, but "the expected recovery is projected to be much less vigorous than normal," the report said. It said banks' ability to finance investment and consumer spending would be hampered by the overhang of unpaid loans and devalued assets.

"To break the cycle and revive lending and growth, bold policy measures, along with substantial international coordination, are needed," the World Bank said. Investment and other financial flows to developing countries plunged by an estimated 39 percent in 2008 to $707 billion, the World Bank said. It said foreign direct investment in developing countries is projected to drop by 30 percent this year to $385 billion.

Eastern Europe and Central Asia have been hit hardest and the region's gross domestic product is expected to plunge by 4.7 percent this year, the bank said. It said growth should recover next year to 1.6 percent.

GDP in Latin America and the Caribbean should shrink by 2.3 percent this year before rebounding to expand by 2 percent in 2010, the report said. In the Middle East and North Africa, growth is expected to fall by half this year to 3.1 percent, while that of sub-Saharan Africa will drop to 1 percent from an annual average of 5.7 percent over the past three years, the bank said.

East Asia should post a 5 percent expansion, supported in part by China's stimulus-fueled growth, the bank said.

Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_12663954?source=email

Tags: World Bank, GDP, Investment, Credit, China, India, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Caribbean, North Africa, Global Economic News, Developing Economies, Global Trade, Global recession, Unemployment, Global Development News, Global Blog Network, Economics,

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China's Solar Drive

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Beijing's bid to boost the solar energy sector could draw more than $10 billion in private funding for projects and put China on track to become a leading market for solar equipment in the next three years.

Shares of U.S.-listed Chinese solar firms such as Suntech Power Holdings, the world's biggest crystalline solar panel-maker, have risen strongly on expectations China will soon unveil more cash incentives to develop solar energy. China, the world's top greenhouse gas polluter, is trying to catch up in a global race to find alternatives to fossil fuels, blamed for carbon emissions affecting the planet's climate.

Any cash perks for the sector will help drive demand for solar energy systems and create bigger businesses for companies involved in the entire solar supply chain, says Julia Wu, an analyst with research firm New Energy Finance. Top panel-makers including Trina Solar, Yingli Green Energy Holding Co and JA Solar are expected to benefit, while solar wafer-makers such as LDK Solar could gain from related business opportunities.

"China could potentially be the top market for solar. Companies up and down the supply chain should benefit," said Wu. Beijing is considering enhancing cash incentives at a time when European states including Germany, one of the largest solar markets, are pulling back on spending to slow industry growth.

Nearly 10 years of subsidized prices have made Germany among the largest markets for photovoltaic panels, which transform sunlight into electricity, producing solar giants including Q-Cells AG and Conergy. "The photovoltaic industry has very good opportunities in the medium and long term now that a lot of countries have decided to develop new energy as an important measure to combat the economic crisis," Shawn Qu, president and chief executive officer of Canadian Solar Inc, told Reuters.

INCENTIVES

Although China supplies half the world's solar panels, it contributes very little to demand as the cost of tapping solar energy to generate electricity remains steep and investors find little economic sense in pursuing solar projects in China where incentives are few. But that's about to change.

China's government said in March it will offer to pay 20 yuan ($2.90) per watt of solar systems fixed to roofs and which have a capacity of more than 50 kilowatt peak (kwp). The subsidy, which could cover half the cost of installing the system, was popular among developers, attracting applications equivalent to the building of 1 gigawatt of solar power.

One GW, or 1 billion watts, is enough electricity to power a million homes. China is expected to raise its 2020 solar power generation target more than fivefold to at least 10 GW. With incentives, analysts expect over 2 GW in new solar capacity will be installed as early as 2011, up from just over 100 MW in 2008.

To further attract investors, Beijing may align its solar energy policy with an incentive scheme used in Europe and the United States called "feed-in tariff," which guarantees above-market prices for generating solar power. China is widely expected to announce a subsidized price for solar power of 1.09 yuan per kW-hour (kwh), or 16 cents, which is over three times the rate paid for coal-fed electricity in China, but far below the established solar tariffs of about 45 cents in Europe and 30 cents in the United States.

"It would be too low considering the current manufacturing technology," said Fang Zheng, general manager of China Huadian Corporation New Energy Resources Development Co, the renewable energy unit of state-owned Huadian Group. "Such a price would not help the development of the solar power generation industry."

Several Chinese power producers say a fair price for solar power would be 1.5 yuan per Kwh. Without a guaranteed high price, solar firms may find it hard to compete. "In itself (the tariff), it's not enough encouragement for the market," said CLSA analyst Charles Yonts. "Even in the sunniest areas, you're still looking at a negative return or below your cost of capital based on current prices." Yonts estimates a developer would have to bring down costs by 30 percent to $3 a watt for a project to yield a return of as little as 8 percent.

THE WHOLE PACKAGE

Nevertheless, analysts say that taken together, Beijing's proposed tariff and other perks should help generate decent returns given that local labor and equipment costs are cheap."(The tariff) sounds a little light relative to European feed-in tariffs," Steven Chadima, Suntech vice president of external affairs, told a recent conference in the United States.

"But the costs are substantially lower in China and there are also other incentive programs available to package together to be able to create a reasonable electricity price coming off these projects." Moreover, prices of polysilicon are expected to fall further below the current $60 a kilogram amid a glut of the solar panel material, further cushioning costs. Certainly a view that the overall impact of the China incentives will be beneficial to the solar sector appears to be reflected in company share prices -- Suntech shares hit a 7-month high last week.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE55I18S20090619

Tags: Solar Power, Photovoltaic, Polysilicon, Solar Subsidies, China, Huadian Group, CLSA analyst Charles Yonts, Global Development News, Canadian Solar Inc, Suntech Power Holdings, Beijing,

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US Government Scientists Call For Urgent Action on Global Warming

Several top U.S. government climate change scientists released a new report on Tuesday warning that the effects of global warming will become more severe unless the Obama administration takes action quickly. For years, scientists have talked about the threat of rising sea levels on remote tropical islands and melting ice in the polar regions. But a new report by the U.S. Global Climate Research Program makes the threat of global warming personal.

"Climate change is happening now and it's happening in our own backyards, and it affects the kinds of things people care about," said Jane Lubchenco. Jane Lubchenco is the head of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. She says the report presents scientific evidence that will inform policy making.

The report, compiled by more than 30 scientists at 13 U.S. government agencies, describes climate-related changes that are happening in the United States. Tom Karl, was a principal author of the report. "U.S. average temperature has risen by 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 50 years," said Tom Karl. "We've had more rain coming in heavy downpours that can lead to flooding. Less winter precipitation is falling as snow, more as rain."

The report, commissioned by the White House, uses climate models to project what will happen if action is not taken to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions that most scientists say cause global warming. It predicts increasingly deadly heat waves, and higher incidents of asthma and diseases transmitted through the water and by insects and rodents. Jerry Melillo, an author and director of the Ecosystems Center at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts, says U.S. coastlines are under particular threat of rising sea levels and stronger hurricanes.

He points specifically to the U.S. coast along the Gulf of Mexico, where seven of the nation's 10 biggest seaports are located and two-thirds of all U.S. oil imports are transported. "Vital energy and transportation infrastructure will be at risk with expected sea level rise and associated storm surge," said Jerry Melillo.

The report says the most severe affects of climate change can be avoided if action is taken swiftly to reduce heat-trapping gasses. Not everyone is convinced. William Gray, a professor emeritus at Colorado State University's Department of Atmospheric Science, is one of the skeptics. He says some scientists are placing too much emphasis on the role of greenhouse gases in climate change.

"There's no way they can warm the way the models say they do warm," said William Gray. Gray says the rising temperatures are caused by natural fluctuations in the oceans' salinity levels. "I think this whole thing in 10, 15, 20 years as we look back on this, and as we learn more, we'll see that this was a great exaggeration," he said. Scientists are not the only people debating climate change. The U.S. Congress is considering legislation on how to tackle the problem. And international negotiators from 182 nations are working on a roadmap to fight global warming.

Negotiators have to come up with a plan to replace the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions by December, when they present their proposal at a United Nations conference in Copenhagen.

Source: http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-06-17-voa20.cfm

Tags: Colorado State University, Copenhagen Conference, Atmospheric Science, Jerry Melillo, William Gray, Kyoto Protocol, Marine Biological Laboratory, Jane Lubchenco, Tom Karl, Global Development News, Global Climate Research Program,

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‘Buy China’ Policy Set To Raise Tensions

China has introduced an explicit “Buy Chinese” policy as part of its economic stimulus programme in a move that will amplify tensions with trade partners and increase the likelihood of protectionism around the world.

In an edict released jointly by nine government departments, Beijing said government procurement must use only Chinese products or services unless they were not available within the country or could not be bought on reasonable commercial or legal terms.

The government also said it was launching an investigation in response to complaints from domestic industry associations which accuse local governments of favouring foreign suppliers in procurement related to the country’s Rmb4,000bn ($585bn, €421bn, £356bn) economic stimulus package.

“From a domestic political perspective this makes some sense because local governments do tend to favour foreign products in some categories,” Dong Tao, chief China economist for Credit Suisse, said. “But given how important free trade is for China’s economy this is not the right message for them to be sending to the rest of the world right now.”

Just a few months ago Beijing was raging against a proposed “Buy American”clause included in the US economic rescue package. “Some countries raised clauses to prioritise the purchase of products of their own countries in their economic stimulus packages,” Yao Jian, a Chinese commerce ministry spokesman, told reporters in February. “We express deep concern about these [measures] ... under the current financial crisis, measures issued by all countries should not cause negative impacts, and especially they should not send out wrong messages.”

Most economists agree China’s economy is starting to recover as a result of its aggressive stimulus package but the country is still struggling with unemployment and fears widespread layoffs could lead to serious social unrest. “The whole world is dying to see China spread its orders around and save their economies,” said Mr Tao. “But what this policy reflects is heightened anxiety about these job pressures and the potential for social unrest.”

The edict was issued jointly by the legislative office of the State Council, China’s cabinet, the national development and reform commission (the country’s powerful state planning agency) and the ministries of industry and information, supervision, housing, transport, railways, water resources and commerce.

The new edict bans local governments and departments from discriminating against domestic suppliers in their procurement. Foreign companies operating in China argue that the opposite is in fact true and that they have been largely cut out of procurement related to the government’s stimulus package.

“We are puzzled by this discussion, especially since most European companies operating in China are locally incorporated and have not benefited directly from the government’s stimulus package,” said Joerg Wuttke, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China. “Requiring government procurement to favour Chinese goods and services certainly won’t help to address China’s trade surplus of €170bn.”

Trade data in recent months show import volumes, particularly of raw materials, have stabilised and started to increase strongly, while exports have stabilised but remain very weak following precipitous drops in both exports and imports since the fourth quarter of last year. China’s trade surplus rose 15.7 per cent to $88.8bn in the first five months from the same period a year earlier.

“Any movement – overt or subtle – to discriminate against foreign products and services is protectionist and an inefficient use of stimulus funds,” said James Zimmerman, partner with the international law firm of Squire Sanders & Dempsey in Beijing.

Source: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/66454774-5a7c-11de-8c14-00144feabdc0.html

Tags: Protectionism, Trade Surplus, Economics, Chinese Stimulus Package, Buy-China provisions, EU Chamber of Commerce in China, Global Economic News, Procurement, Joerg Wuttke, Squire Sanders & Dempsey Beijing,

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